Photo by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE
Data Sciences are fundamentally transforming nearly every area of engineering, science, and society. The University of Washington’s Electrical & Computer Engineering faculty are making fundamental contributions to many different areas of data sciences, including machine learning, AI, optimization, information theory, computer vision, and speech and natural language processing. Many of our data sciences faculty hold secondary appointments in applied mathematics, computer science and engineering, bioengineering, and other departments, and are active participants in cross-disciplinary institutes such as the UW eScience Institute, the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) and the Bloedel Hearing Research Center.
Artificial intelligence (AI), mathematical optimization and information theory.
Faculty: Lillian Ratliff, Jeffrey A. Bilmes, Maryam Fazel, Mari Ostendorf, Eli Shlizerman, Jenq-Neng Hwang, Linda Shapiro, Shwetak Patel, Radha Poovendran, Jing Yu
Theory, algorithms, signal processing systems and signal processing applications (i.e. biomedical, geophysical signals and synthetic signals).
Faculty: Mari Ostendorf, Jenq-Neng Hwang
Speech recognition, natural language understanding, computational linguistics and web-based language techniques.
Faculty: Mari Ostendorf, Jeffrey A. Bilmes
Video analysis, surveillance, object recognition, activity recognition, medical image analysis and video compression
Faculty: Jenq-Neng Hwang, Linda Shapiro, Jeffrey A. Bilmes, Radha Poovendran
The inaugural Chips2Future summer engineering immersion, piloted and led by UW ECE faculty, offered undergraduate students an intensive primer in semiconductor design and production, hands-on practice in world-class facilities, and visits to many of the companies that now produce 90 percent of the world’s advanced microchips.
Last spring, UW ECE Professor Emeritus Les Atlas unexpectedly passed away. Over his career, Atlas helped shape fields ranging from digital signal processing to machine learning, mentored generations of students and researchers, and co-developed the world’s first portable cochlear implant speech processor.
Students in the UW ECE Professional Master’s Program, including (from left to right) Bita Massoudi, Jayce Gaddis, and Devika Nair, are learning how to embed advanced AI capabilities into resource-constrained electronics.
The UW College of Engineering's Industry Capstone Program partners UW ECE students with sponsor organizations to devise innovative solutions to real-world problems.
UW ECE and Allen School Professor Shwetak Patel was recently elected part of the 2026 class of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for his pioneering contributions to computer science.
UW ECE is proud to announce that Khushbu Patel (MSECE ‘26) and Kathryn Fehme (BSECE ‘26) have been selected to speak at this year's Graduation Ceremony.
